Zig & Sharko

This cartoon makes me laugh so hard! So far, this is one of the best Xilam productions, in my opinion. I was amazed to discover it's a French cartoon. I'm not too fond of French productions, but "Zig & Sharko" is an exception. I can easily "get" this type of humor (slapstick), even if I'm used to American and British comedies. The inventiveness of the team working on this cartoon is so impressive: they always come up with incredible ideas. In addition, I really like this type of animation, it's more similar to what I was used to in my childhood (e.g. Wile E. Coyote). I love the visuals, the sound effects, the narration and directing style.

Two seasons of "Zig & Sharko" have been released, each season consisting of 26 episodes. Due to the nature of the stories, I would recommend it to kids ages 7+.

A refreshing break from the writing formulas mainstream kids cartoons and no repetitive dialogue. Has a Pepe le Pew meets Animaniacs feel to it.

This cartoon is presumably a remake of 'Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner'. Instead of a hungry wolf, however, we got a starving hyena whereas an ostrich is replaced with a mermaid.

The series so far consists of two seasons with seventy eight episodes each. The plot almost solely circles around Zig - a desperate hyena on a remote island who tries to catch and eat Marina - a redhead goofy mermaid. Most of the plans to catch the mermaid are neglected by Sharko - a great white shark (duh!) who is Marina's very protective boyfriend. Zig is also accompanied by a hermit crab named Bernie. Occasionally, a few other characters are introduced but most of them just once.

The cartoon is very colorful, nonetheless, the first season has different character and background graphic design than the second one. This may be probably explained by the fact that the first season ran during 2010 whereas the second was broadcast during 2016. Noticeably, some of the character changes are present as well. Personally, I prefer the first season.

There are several music themes present in both seasons and interestingly, there is no spoken dialogue. All characters communicate with each other by gestures and other ways of non-verbal communication.

As explained the cartoon bears considerable amount of similarities to the Road Runner show. Zig is very creative in methods concerning capturing Marina just like Wile E Coyote was. Very often he uses various sea animals to obtain his goal which is hilarious. Of course typically he is either out of luck or mostly his attempts are hampered by Sharko - needless to say in a quite horrific manner but as an adult I am not much bothered by this. The show was meant to be quite silly and as an entertainment it is pretty good.

In my personal opinion it is very good for someone who is younger, give them a sense of entertainment that doesn't have to be educational 24/7 and instead more on the funny side. It can let your kid learn how to pick sides and even parts of the show give a few lessons on what is good to do in life for other people and how to get along, I personally watched this when I was a bit younger so I'm speaking from experience when it comes to this specific show. And for the sexist comment, just how is this sexist on its own? They probably call the original Donkey Kong sexist for the person you have to save being a girl.

Borrowing heavily from the classic Looney Tunes and MGM animation tropes, this series will elicit nostalgia for a bygone era of animation. This series is the classic scenario of might over cunning, although neither Zig nor Sharkolo are particularly ingenious. Lots of prats and big booms, and violence invariably causes and solves all the problems on this show. The helpless mermaid adds even more tropism as the damsel in infinite distresses. On the rarer occasion where Zig and Sharkolo have to work together, it reminds me of those episodes of Tom and Jerry where the two would set aside their obvious differences to solve a shared dilemma, only to be back at each other's throats as soon as it's resolved. The art direction relies a little too much on Ren and Stimpy and Spongebob Squarepants, but even still, it manages to stand on its own. Non-verbal, so translation won't be a problem to any global audiences.